San Bernardino sees more votes amid historically low turnout

SAN BERNARDINO >> Record-low voter turnout throughout the state, including San Bernardino County, had an anomaly Tuesday — significant turnout growth in the city of San Bernardino.

Out of about 77,000 registered voters, the vote on whether to change the city charter’s drew nearly 19,000 votes (all of this election’s turnout numbers will increase slightly as another 15,365 votes are counted countywide, according to the Registrar of Voters). That’s more than 50 percent more than voted in what elections officials thought was a “compelling” but disappointingly ill-attended February election that chose Carey Davis as mayor.

Measure Q still received votes from less than one in every four registered voters — a group that already consists of only a fraction of the city’s 210,000 residents.

“It’s still nothing to be proud of,” City Clerk Gigi Hanna said. “Part of that might be people not feeling connected — but the way to be heard is to vote. It’s so sad that people let this issue, however you feel about it, be decided by such a small number of people.”

But the increase — a large one — comes amid almost universal drops in turnout. The national turnout isexpected to be the lowest in a midterm since World War II. California expects to fall below 2002’s record low. San Bernardino County’s 33 percent is almost certain to be a record low, according to Registrar of Voters Michael Scarpello.

So what’s different about this city, this year?

For one thing, people come out to vote when state and federal offices are on the line, said Fernando J. Guerra, director of the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University and assistant to the president for civic enagement.

“You should have elections where the voters are,” Guerra said. “If people are voting in November of even years, that’s when you should have the elections.”

Guerra was head of a commission charged with finding ways to boost voter turnout in Los Angeles, whose first recommendation this year was to change the LA city charter to consolidate its elections with the state’s.

Get Out the Vote Tomorrow!

 

Tomorrow, join the thousands that will make their voice heard and Get Out Your Vote!

Polls are open from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. You can find your polling place  

here. 

This election Gladys (right) voted for the very first time in her life. After years of incarceration and people making decisions for her she finally had the opportunity to choose for herself and let her voice be heard! 

Take Action California wants you to remember that Your Voice Matters! 

You are NOT Invisible!

Election Day is 1 Week Away!

We're 1 week away from election day!

Don't forget that your vote matters

VOTE on November 4th!

Your Vote Matters!

Absentee ballots have dropped and we want to remind you to get out the vote!

You are not invisible and together we can change things for the better!

Election Day is Tuesday, November 4th!

Polls are open from 7 am - 8 pm

If you are not registered to vote you can register online at www.registertovote.ca.gov

California Proposition 48, Referendum to Overturn Indian Gaming Compacts

California Proposition 48, the Referendum to Overturn Indian Gaming Compacts, is on the November 4, 2014 ballot in California as a veto referendum. If signed by the required number of registered voters and timely filed with the Secretary of State, this petition will place on the statewide ballot a challenge to a state law previously approved by the Legislature and the Governor. The law must then be approved by a majority of voters at the next statewide election to go into effect. The law ratifies two gaming compacts (with the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians, and the Wiyot Tribe); and it exempts execution of the compacts, certain projects, and intergovernmental agreements from the California Environmental Quality Act. (13-0007).

If the measure is approved by the state's voters, it will:

• Ratify AB 277 (Ch. 51, Stats. 2013)
• Ratify two gaming compacts between California and, respectively, the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians, and the Wiyot Tribe.
• Exempt execution of the compacts, certain projects, and intergovernmental agreements from the California Environmental Quality Act.

This measure is a veto referendum; this means that a "yes" vote is a vote to uphold or ratify the contested legislation (AB 277) that was enacted by the California State Legislature while a "no" vote is a vote to overturn AB 277.

Read more about the veto referendum by visiting: http://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_48,_Referendum_to_Overturn_Indian_Gaming_Compacts_(2014)

Join Take Action California and Celebrate National Voter Registration Day!

Take Action California wants you to join us to celebrate National Voter Registration Day. A day where eligible voters across the nation can register to vote and make their voices heard!

Today we're taking a stand with people like Diane who has been in and out of prison a majority of her life. "I vote because I can and because I know my vote counts!"  She now votes at every election and is always encouraging others in her community to do the same!

Help us spread the word so that everyone in California knows that their voice matters. Together, we can make a difference!

You can vote in California if you are:

- US citizen

- California resident

- At least 18 years of age on election day

- Not in prison, on parole, or serving a state prison sentence in county jail

- Not found by a court to be mentally incompetent

You CAN vote if...

- If you have a felony

- Are on probation

- Are on Mandatory Supervision 

- Are on Post Release Community Supervision

To register to vote online visit:

http://registertovote.ca.gov/

Cop widow becomes unlikely public face for Proposition 47

The policeman's widow stood in the Oakland courtroom and poured out her broken heart.

She told the jury about a young daughter who would never see her daddy again, a teenage boy who lost his father figure, a wife stripped of her soul mate. She begged that the convicted killer, whom she branded a "beast," be given the death penalty so he could "burn in hell." After the tears had been wiped away, the jury agreed with Dionne Wilson, sentencing to death the man who shot San Leandro Officer Dan Niemi seven times during a routine stop.

But the 2007 verdict didn't bring the mother of two, who met Niemi while working in a South Bay gun shop, peace of mind. Consumed with rage, Wilson clung even more fiercely to the belief that the law should crack down hard on all offenders -- even on someone who just steals "a Popsicle."

When she could no longer live with her anger, the police widow underwent a spiritual journey that's led to an unlikely outcome. Nine years after her husband was gunned down, Wilson has become the public face for a sentence-reduction initiative on the November ballot that she once would have scorned as the work of "mentally ill liberals." Proposition 47 would require misdemeanor sentences rather than longer felony sentences for six crimes, including petty theft under $950.

"Dan would probably say, 'Who are you and what have you done with my wife?' " Wilson, 45, said of her new outlook. "But we need to think about where this whole cycle of crime started. If we can get in front of it, maybe there won't be a person on the other end who is killing a police officer like Dan."

Wilson joins a growing chorus of tough-on-crime advocates from across the country who now agree with social justice champions on the left that the prison-only approach for nonviolent offenders is failing, and that there are more efficient uses of taxpayer dollars to make communities safer.

Last year, 35 states passed less-restrictive laws, including conservative Mississippi and Alabama. The year before, Californians voted overwhelmingly to ease the state's Three Strikes Law, then the toughest in the nation. And in a landmark decision earlier this year, the bipartisan U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to reduce lengthy sentences for most federal drug offenders and make thousands of current inmates eligible for resentencing under the new guidelines.

Proposition 47 itself has netted another unexpected champion. Conservative Christian Republican and Public Storage founder B. Wayne Hughes Jr. has contributed $750,000 so far, with plans to spend $5 million.

"This is a situation where the walls of partisanship ought to come down immediately," the millionaire wrote in the ballot statement.

But other crime victims with tragic tales similar to Wilson's disagree. Three victims groups oppose the measure, including the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault, which objects that it would make possession of date-rape drugs and other narcotics an automatic misdemeanor. Misdemeanors carry lighter sentences than felonies, often just probation or short stints in jail.

The initiative also has drawn serious opposition from law enforcement -- including associations of district attorneys, sheriffs and police -- and from groups of retailers and grocers, who contend that property crime would increase. So far, only former San Diego and San Jose police Chief Bill Landsdowne and two California district attorneys have come out in support -- George Gascon in San Francisco and Paul Gallegos in Humboldt County.

"Someone can commit petty theft 10,000 times," San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said, "and we'd still have to always charge it as a misdemeanor." Also under Proposition 47, Wagstaffe noted, about 10,000 nonviolent inmates in overflowing jails and prisons would be eligible to apply for early release.

Proponents say that's exactly the point. The hundreds of millions dollars that the secretary of state's office estimates would have been spent annually to house prison inmates would instead go to education, mental health and drug treatment programs, and victims assistance.

Such leniency once would have been unthinkable for Wilson.

From the moment she heard the knock on the door in the middle of that awful night at her Milpitas home, and saw three police officers crying, the pain was unrelenting.

After the single mother and Niemi had met in the gun shop, they had never been apart. Married in 1999, they had a daughter, Jordan, and Niemi became close to her son, Josh Hewett.

"It was just one of those fairy-tale love stories," said Wilson, sitting in her Morgan Hill home.

But her sense of safety was shattered and her life became a blur of grief on July 25, 2005. Niemi, 42, who had become a policeman just three years earlier, was shot to death by Irving Ramirez, 23, while responding to a noise complaint. Carrying two handguns and some drugs, Ramirez was on probation and didn't want to go back to jail.

Wilson had hoped the death verdict two years later would start a healing process. In her case, it didn't. Even as she remarried, "moving on" eluded her.

She suffered health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder. She drank, favoring appletinis. She tried, and failed, to distract herself, buying things such as technology gadgets and a succession of nine horses.

"Everything was an outward expression of my hate toward Irving and anybody who had ever committed a crime," Wilson said.

Seeking to quiet her roiling mind, she began a "mad quest" of spiritual teachings that brought her to meditation and Buddhism, finding comfort in the concepts of compassion and overcoming suffering.

At some point, she was stunned to realize that she no longer hated the man who had torn apart her family's life. In 2010, she drafted a letter to Ramirez, writing that she regretted making him seem "less than human" at the trial. She no longer supports the death penalty.

"I'm really proud of her to be able to get through the difficult times and be able to forgive," said her son, Hewett, 24, who was close to his stepfather. "I'm pretty sure some people disapprove, but they also don't understand how hard this has been on her and what it's taken for her to get to this point."

Now, she is on the board of the Insight Prison Project, a restorative justice agency based in San Rafael, which tries to find something redemptive even in society's worst as they accept accountability for what they have done. Wilson also is the survivor outreach coordinator for Californians for Safety and Justice, Proposition 47's sponsor, meeting with crime survivors across the state and helping them put their lives back together.

The state remains under enormous pressure to comply with a federal court order and reduce prison overcrowding. And Wilson sees Proposition 47 as another step toward a smarter criminal justice system that would prevent more families from going through what hers has endured.

"I want to get ahead of crime instead of just playing cleanup," Wilson said. "Instead of calling the coroner, let's get into the schools and invest in the families and communities who are filling the prisons. Isn't that what this whole public safety discussion is about?"

Contact Tracey Kaplan at 408-278-3482. Follow her at Twitter.com/tkaplanreport.

Plans for the savings

Under a fixed formula, hundreds of millions of dollars a year that would have been spent annually to house prison inmates will be reallocated.65 percent -- to the Board of State and Community Corrections for mental and drug treatment programs and diversion programs
25 percent -- to K-12 education, for programs aimed at helping at-risk kids
10 percent -- to Victims Compensation Fund, for grief and mental health counseling, and relocation

Proposition 49: Amendment to Overturn Citizens United Ruling Question

The California Proposition 49, the Amendment to Overturn Citizens United Ruling Question, will not be on the November 4, 2014 ballot in California as an advisory question. The measure would have asked voters whether the United States Congress shall propose, and the California Legislature ratify, an amendment or amendments to the United States Constitution to overturn Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and other related judicial rulings.

The suggested amendment would allow for the full regulation or limitation of campaign contributions and spending for the purpose of ensuring that all citizens, regardless of wealth, may express their views to one another and to make clear that the rights protected by the United States Constitution are the rights of natural persons only. If passed by voters, the California Secretary of State would be required to communicate the results of the measure to the U.S. Congress. There will be no direct fiscal effect on state or local governments if passed.

The biggest arguments for the passage of this initiative lie in the fact that the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights are intended to protect the rights of individual human beings. Corporations, however, are not mentioned in the Constitution, and the people have never granted constitution rights to corporations, nor have we agreed that corporations have authority that exceeds the authority of “We the People.” The corrosive effects of immense wealth that has accumulated as a result of corporations in reality have little or no correlation to the public’s support for the corporation’s political ideas. Corporations also have special advantages not enjoyed by individuals such as limited liability, perpetual life, and favorable treatment of the accumulation and distribution of assets that allow them to spend huge sums on campaign messages that have little or no correlation with the beliefs held by natural persons.

Read more about the amendment by visiting: http://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_49,_Amendment_to_Overturn_Citizens_United_Ruling_Question_(2014)

The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act of 2014

Proposition 47: The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act of 2014 is an initiative for the November 2014 California ballot. Over the last 25 years there have been 1,000 changes made to the California penal code, many of those have made misdemeanor offenses become felonies. As a result, people of color have been highly impacted and continue reap the negative affects of mass incarceration in California. Annually, we spend $10 billion on the prison system with more than 130,000 people in prison at a yearly cost of $62,396.

Proposition 47 will permanently reduce incarceration and shift one $1 billion over the next five years alone to K-12 school programs and mental health and drug treatment. More specifically, Prop. 47 will:

• Reclassify six petty theft crimes including: petty theft , shoplifting, receipt of stolen property, writing a bad check, fraud, and drug possession (all under $950). 
• Create retroactive sentencing to those currently incarcerated and not at risk to public safety and any Californian with prior felony convictions (listed above).
• Re-allocate funds that will support rehabilitation; 65% will be shifted into mental health and drug treatment; 25% will support K-12 school programs; and 10% will go to victim services.

Hundreds of thousands of Californians that have paid the time for their crimes will now be able to fix their records which will ultimately eliminate the barriers to employment, housing, student loans, and public assistance. Prop. 47 will save billions in tax payers dollars and reduce the rates of recidivism so that children will not continue in the cycles of incarceration. 

For more information on The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act visit: http://www.safetyandschools.com/

Last Day to Register to Vote!

Today is the last day to register vote before the June Primary Election! You can register by visiting your local county registrars office or register online here. 

If you are already registered please encourage your friends and family to register!

You can vote early, vote by mail, or vote on election day... but however you vote, remember that your voice matters!

To view this years candidates click here. 

Special Election: Morrell wins state Senate seat

Assemblyman Mike Morrell, R-Rancho Cucamonga, won Tuesday's special election in the 23rd Senate District. 

Morrell received 62.6 percent of the vote, with all 811 precincts reporting, according to semi-official results released by the Secretary of State's Office.

Democrat Ronald O'Donnell, an attorney, was second with 15.3 percent, followed by Democrat Ameenah Fuller, a health care policy consultant, with 9.5 percent, Calimesa City Councilman Jeff Hewitt, a Libertarian, with 6.5 percent and San Jacinto Mayor Crystal Ruiz, also a Republican, at 6.1 percent.

Under California's top two primary system, if one candidate captures a majority of the votes, they win outright and there is no run-off in the general election.

The special primary election was necessitated by the resignation of Sen. Bill Emmerson, R-Redlands, who said his "level of commitment'' had waned, and he felt constituents deserved better representation.

In campaign literature, Morrell touted his legislative experience and two decades as a business owner. He said if elected, he would push for a balanced state budget, a reduction in the state bureaucracy and higher academic standards.

California lawmakers push off college affirmative action bill

California voters will not decide in the 2014 election whether race, gender or ethnicity ought to be considered in college admissions, after lawmakers postponed deliberation on a bill that intends to amend the state constitution.

Spurred by an onslaught of opposition to the proposal, Assembly Speaker John Perez announced Monday that he was sending Senate Constitutional Amendment No. 5 back to the senate — without any action on behalf of the lower assembly — at the request of Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, the author of the bill.

Perez said although the bill addressed issues pertinent to most members of the legislature, some lawmakers articulated qualms about the bill’s logistics and its effect on potential college applicants. Certain constituents have expressed concern — for example, some members of the Asian American community worried that the amendment would ostracize them in college admissions.

In response, three prominent Asian American senators — Ted Lieu, D-Torrance; Carol Liu, D-La Canada Flintridge; and Leland Yee, D-San Francisco — wrote a letter last week imploring Hernandez to hold SCA-5 until “he has an opportunity to meet with affected communities and attempt to build a consensus.”

“We felt it was necessary to have a discussion based on facts (before further action),” Hernandez said in a press release.

The proposed amendment seeks to overturn Proposition 209, a 1996 ballot initiative that prohibits the consideration of race, sex or ethnicity in state institutions. Following the passage of Prop. 209, UC Berkeley saw a significant drop in the number of minority students admitted to the university.

If the bill is ratified, the amendment would be placed before voters as a ballot measure. Perez expects that the delay won’t upset the current timeline and that a proposition will be on the 2016 ballot.

“I believe in affirmative action, and I believe it is an important tool to bring diversity,” Yee said. “I don’t want anyone to believe that SCA would negatively impact any community, and I asked (Hernandez and Perez) to have a discussion so that people are all on the same page.”

Hoping to placate anxieties provoked by the measure, Perez called for the creation of a nonpartisan and bicameral task force that will discuss issues related to the comprehensive access to higher education. He intends to include members from all three segments of higher education in California as well as legislators, academics and other key stakeholders.

“It is important that we engage in a very broad conversation … so that we can fully address the issues that our universities are dealing with and give them the tools to expand access and not retract it,” Perez said in a statement.

Some UC Berkeley students have expressed concern about the amendment. In particular, ASUC presidential hopeful David Douglass, who is running with the Defend Affirmative Action Party, doubted the lawmakers’ intent to place the amendment before voters, though he supports affirmative action policies. He debated ASUC Senator Solomon Nwoche about such policies Friday.

Nwoche, who is against affirmative action policies, said that in the long run, the amendment might “actually hurt those students who the campus is recruiting as a whole.”

But representatives from the campus organization REACH! — an Asian Pacific Islander recruitment and retention center — support the measure and think the basis for opposition to SCA-5 is rooted in misinformation.

“There are a lot of misconceptions about SCA-5,’” said Victor Phu, a UC Berkeley junior and REACH! associate director of retention. “(But) Berkeley is engaged in a comprehensive review of admission. We want to take race, sex, ethnicity and sexual orientation into consideration with admissions.”